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August 2009 - present
Publications
Publications (93)
Three perspectives on international trade are present in current debates. From the first perspective, trade is regarded as a set of individual transactions among consenting parties and considerations of fairness and justice barely feature, if at all. The second perspective underlines the importance of background structures for trade, maintained by...
This article investigates the integration of smallholders into voluntary certification schemes, exemplified by smallholder certification under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in Indonesia (RSPO). It identifies the main barriers to the adoption of standards by smallholders and the specific compliance challenge in the context of RSPO smallhold...
While thousands of environment-related treaties have been concluded, it remains unclear whether they have been implemented. This paper investigates the relationship between the conclusion of treaties, namely international environmental agreements (IEAs) and preferential trade agreements (PTAs) that include environmental provisions, and the adoption...
Environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are increasing in terms of their number and variety. The economic effects of these environmental provisions remain largely unclear. It is, therefore, necessary to determine whether the trend to incorporate environmental provisions in PTAs counteracts the goal to spur economic developm...
Transnational climate actions have come to constitute a distinguishable sphere of climate governance. Reflecting on the Paris outcome, this article discusses the role of non-State and subnational actors – especially on the road to the Paris climate change conference. It argues that the intergovernmental and transnational spheres of global climate g...
In its report ‚Humanity on the move: Unlocking the transformative power of cities‘ (2016), the WBGU examines the transformation of cities towards sustainability. Research has a key role to play in this context, for urban transformation is a societal learning and search process. To give this societal process orientation, the WBGU has developed a ‘no...
Climate change and development are strongly interconnected. An efficient use of financial resources would, thus require alignment between climate finance and development priorities, as set out in the context of both the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this paper, we investigate to what extent climate-related offi...
To create institutional synergies and enhance regulatory effectiveness, scholars of transnational sustainability governance have called for a better integration of private authority with public policy instruments. Surprisingly, however, systematic research on the state of such public-private complementarities in the field of sustainable development...
Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) increasingly include environmental provisions. While the existing literature documents these provisions' environmental impacts, this paper sheds light on their relation with aid flows. Using an event-specification and data on bilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitments for a sample of 147 develop...
This paper investigates linkages between trade and climate policies by examining commitments made in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. While environmental protection and economic growth are often perceived as conflicting policy goals, PTAs and NDCs have the potential to en...
Sustainable development requires that the climate system be stabilised between 1.5°C and 2°C of average global warming. This necessitates a drastic reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. Developing countries and emerging economies are increasingly the focus here. These nations already account for two-thirds of global emissions. Failure to ac...
The COVID-19 pandemic is not merely an epidemiological phenomenon, but a set of global crises intertwined with political and economic processes in manifold ways. This collection brings together fifteen contributions from the interdiscipline of Global Political Economy reflecting on origins, implications and responses during the first year of the gl...
This policy brief discusses Africa’s diversification and trade policies for improved intra-
African and international trade, economic and social transformation, as well as
promoting win–win G20–Africa economic relations. The brief presents the imperatives
to broaden Africa–G20 cooperation through improved trade and restructured
global value chains...
This study provides early ex-post empirical evidence on the effects of provisionally applied Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) on trade flows between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). Employing the gravity model of trade, we do not find a general EPA effect on trade between ACP countries and...
This essay revisits the developed/developing country division in the global economy in the light of the economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. A trend that precedes the pandemic has been a seeming detachment of the binary distinction between "developed" versus "developing" countries and what has been described as growing economic diversit...
This paper aims to estimate the economic vulnerability of developing countries to the collapse in global value chains (GVCs) due to the COVID‐19 pandemic. It uses trade in value added data for a sample of 12 developing countries in sub‐Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America to elicit on their dependence on demand and supply from the three main hubs...
By providing insights into the interaction between private-driven and public-driven governance initiatives in the context of the “Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil” (RSPO) and the “Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil” (ISPO), this article sheds new light the interaction between private and public governance. It investigates how the relationship betwee...
This chapter focuses on the linkage between economic and environmental governance by tracking environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). While the USA and the European Union are frequently seen as innovators of ‘green’ content in PTAs, systematic research on the role of emerging markets in promoting this development is scarce...
This chapter investigates the changing landscape of voluntary sustainability standards in Indonesia and discusses potential trade-offs between the socio-economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development in the context of smallholder certification in the palm oil sector. On the one hand, there is a concern that sustainability standard...
The international community has acknowledged that international trade can be an effective means of helping to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Traditionally, preferential trade agreements (PTAs) were designed to promote trade flows. PTAs have become more comprehensive and now also...
Club governance is among the most contested of global governance approaches. This article investigates legitimacy evaluations of two informal governance clubs from the perspective of both old powers and rising powers. It examines how legitimate the G7/G8 and the G20 are perceived to be and which (de-)legitimation criteria are used in the context of...
The increasing uptake of environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) is well documented, but little is known about why countries prefer certain types of provisions over others. Exploiting a fine-grained dataset on environmental provisions in PTAs and hypothesizing that environmental provisions are more likely to be adopted when...
In 2015, the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were adopted, bringing about a shift from legally binding emission mitigation targets based on common metrics for developed countries only, towards voluntary commitments for all. Our content analysis of countries’ climate activities in 164 nationally determined contributio...
Der Bericht führt Ergebnisse aus fünf Studien zusammen, die im Ressortforschungsplan-Vorhaben „Umweltpolitik im 21. Jahrhundert – Ansätze zur Bewältigung neuartiger Herausforderungen“ (FKZ 3715 11 102 0) durchgeführt wurden. Im Vorhaben wurden ausgewählte Herausforderungen und Ansatzpunkte von Umweltpolitik betrachtet, die einer vertieften Auseinan...
The Shifting Landscape of Global Trade Governance - edited by Manfred Elsig August 2019
Most recent preferential trade agreements (PTAs) include environmental provisions. While a number of these environmental provisions remain rare and are incorporated in just a few PTAs, others are widely popular and are duplicated in more than 100 PTAs. We still lack a convincing explanation for this varying frequency. While the diffusion literature...
Der Bericht führt Ergebnisse aus fünf Studien zusammen, die im Forschungsprojekt „Umweltpolitik im 21. Jahrhundert – Ansätze zur Bewältigung neuartiger Herausforderungen“ durchgeführt wurden. Vertieft untersucht wurden dabei: Dynamiken und Lehren von Umweltpolitik; Narrative und Diskurse in der Umweltpolitik; Ökonomisierung von Umwelt(politik); Kon...
While there is lively debate in normative theory and political philosophy about what makes trade ‘just’, the use of normative arguments and concepts has hardly been explored in practice. To address this gap, this chapter empirically investigates what statements about procedural and substantive notions of justice made in the normative literature are...
This article discusses why cities are essential for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement. After an introduction to the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement, the article analyses the role of cities in the context of these two key agendas. Moreover, the article highlights the New Urban Agenda agreed upon at Habitat III, the Un...
One major objective of the German G20 presidency in 2016/17 was to promote the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are essential to addressing the collective challenges faced by the world. Without G20 countries, these challenges cannot be tackled effectively. Putting t...
Megaregional trade negotiations have become the subject of heated debate, above all in the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In this article, I argue that the justice of the global order suffers from its institutional fragmentation into regime complexes. From a republican p...
Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement are mainly statements of the actions a country intends to take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but many indicate other priorities and ambitions that contribute to broader sustainable development. The new NDC-SDG Connections tool can identify the most important overlaps and pot...
NDC-SDG Connections is a visual tool that connects climate action to the Sustainable Development Goals: Analyse and compare how climate actions formulated in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) corresponds to each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Find out more here: http://ndc-sdg.info/
Until recently, environmental concerns have played only a marginal role in trade policy. The rulebook of the World Trade Organization (WTO) rarely touches upon environmental concerns and mainly features an exception clause for the protection of the environment (GATT, Art. XX). However, the rising number of modern preferential trade agreements (...
The Paris Climate Agreement, reached in December 2015, is designed to drive greater climate action, while allowing countries to choose their own targets and mitigation measures. This diversity and scale-up in ambition will increase interactions between climate measures and trade. This paper analyses countries’ nationally-determined climate contribu...
The NDC Explorer allows users to analyse and compare (Intended) Nationally Determined Contributions through interactive maps and bar charts, as well as country files. The NDC Explorer holds 60 different sub-categories divided over the following main categories: Mitigation; Adaptation; Finance and Support; Planning and Process; and 'Broader Picture'...
With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the entry into force of the Paris Climate Agreement, the international community has inter alia pledged their commitment to economic development that is consistent with environmental sustainability. This paper focuses on the linkage between economic and environmental governance by tr...
Im Jahr 2015 gelang ein historischer Doppelerfolg für die Nachhaltigkeits-und Klimapolitik. Die Agenda 2030 für nachhaltige Entwicklung mit ihren Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) und das Überein-kommen von Paris zum Klimaschutz definieren ein ehrgeiziges globales Zielsystem. Die Gruppe der zwanzig wichtigsten Industrie-und Schwellenländer (G20)...
This article investigates the role of rising powers in the global trading system – within the World Trade Organization (WTO) and beyond the WTO. It explores the emergence of bilateral and (mega-)regional agreements such as the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and their implications for the...
The level of approval for free trade is falling generally, and globalisation critics are enjoying fresh momentum in large parts of the world, even among former champions of free trade. How can we explain these trends?
This article investigates potential trade-offs between the socioeconomic and environmental dimensions of development within the context of transnational business governance and sustainability standards, exemplified by smallholder certification in the palm oil sector as a means to improve both sustainability and the inclusion of small farmers in glo...
The availability of trade finance can be an important driver for international trade. This paper analyses the effect of trade finance on the trade flows of industrialized, emerging and developing economies and focuses in particular on the role of trade openness. We use Berne Union data on export credit insurance, the most extensive dataset on trade...
The availability of trade finance can be an important driver for international trade. This paper analyses the effect of trade finance on the trade flows of industrialized, emerging and developing economies and focuses in particular on the role of trade openness. We use Berne Union data on export credit insurance, the most extensive dataset on trade...
On 14 October 2015 the European Commission has released the new EU trade and investment strategy. Its catchy title – “Trade for All” – is very auspicious as well as ambitious and the strategy contains promising elements for global development. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating: how will the strategy be put into practice? From a developm...
This article investigates the integration of smallholders into voluntary certification schemes, exemplified by smallholder certification under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in Indonesia (RSPO). It identifies the main barriers to the adoption of standards by smallholders and the specific compliance challenge in the context of RSPO smallhold...
While the list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations’ Open Working Group (OWG) comprises a catalog of highly important post-2015 development priorities, one of the key issue that has not received the attention it deserves is the need to safeguard the Earth's life-support system. Over the course of the past decade...
Die 17 SDGs stellen einen Katalog wichtiger Prioritäten für nachhaltige Entwicklung dar. Eine grundlegende Dimension, so argumentieren wir in diesem Beitrag, ist jedoch nicht ausreichend berücksichtigt: die Notwendigkeit, die Erdsystemleistungen zu schützen, die unabdingbar sind, um die Zukunft menschlicher Entwicklung gewährleisten zu können. Die...
This paper explores the use of international governance frameworks as being one of the ways to regulate large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs). LSLAs are currently flourishing in both developed and developing countries, in particular in the sub-Saharan Africa region. Although they can potentially have many positive impacts in rural areas, many LSLAs...
Review: Terry Macdonald, Global Stakeholder Democracy. Power and Representation Beyond Liberal States, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008.
The 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) makes it unmistakeably clear: unacceptable climatic consequences, which are likely to escalate beyond the 2°C guard rail, can only be avoided if further increases in greenhouse-gas concentrations are halted as soon as possible. The WBGU therefore recommends reducing C...
This article examines the emergence of carbon standards and labels, with a focus on China as one of the key drivers of the future global economy. The article attempts to answer two questions. First, as Chinese firms take on more substantive roles in global production networks, how do they deal with environmental and sustainability standards, especi...
The year 2015 has special importance for the transformation towards sustainable development. New Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are then supposed to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The aim is to offer a new orientation for political action in the coming decades. The WBGU recommends orienting the new catalogue of goals towar...
Water, energy and land are essential for many lifesupporting functions and key for satisfying basic human needs and development. The idea of an integrated approach that satisfies the complex linkages between water, energy and land should be part of a post-2015 development agenda.
This paper examines the nexus between climate change and trade governance from a normative perspective. Only little research attention has been paid to assessing the interactions between empirical and normative approaches to climate change in the context of potential trade measures. To this end, the paper focuses on currently discussed border carbo...
The concept of sustainable development and the idea of an integrated approach that satisfies the complex linkages between water, energy and land should be part of a post-2015 development agenda.
Water, energy and land are essential for many lifesupporting functions and key for satisfying basic human needs and development. Access to these resources...
